Lessons Learned - The Value of Good Photos on Ebay

A Decent Photo, In my opinion

Check out my current listings on Ebay

I got lazy for a minute.  Okay, this isn't the first time.  And the story I'm about to tell you doesn't really prove anything, but I thought it was interesting and could warrant further research if it wasn't such a "duh" revelation.

On Thursday, I took pics of the earrings and necklace you see here and wasn't completely happy with them, but was tired by the end of the day.  I posted what I had and let go.  My two scheduled auctions came up Sunday evening and I admit I cringed when I looked at the original photo.

Mostly, if I've picked good items (and you can't really miss with fine jewelry, as long is it's not too fancy), I should see bids on the item by the end of the day Monday.  With fine jewelry, it's usually sooner.  I got a few bids on the sterling bracelet lot I listed, but none on this gold and pearl lot.

I said in my head, "that picture cannot be helping my cause".  So, although I really didn't want to do it, I thought for a minute about how I could improve the picture and decided to re-take the photos.  The original pictures were on white, which I felt actually in the closeups brought out the luminescence, depth, and color of the pearls.  However, when pulled back, it was just white on white, and way too small.

I wanted to keep some of the white background pictures but I thought the overall picture would pop more if I did new pictures on darker background, so I chose this relatively subdued blue.  I also decided that any picture including the entire necklace would just not look good.  Spread the whole thing out, and it's so thin and delicate that it just gets lost.  Bunch it up and it looks like a mess.  I settled by including the feature of the necklace (the three seed pearls), then showing the clasp and remaining chain in later pictures.

I still wasn't extremely happy with the way the larger pearls weren't very sharp, but there comes a point of diminishing returns when you obsess too much about perfect photography with Ebay.  There are also some really nice shots of the pearls on the white background as well.  So I was satisfied and posted the new pictures.  No kidding, I got a bid on this item about 15 minutes later.  As they say, "Correlation doesn't equal causation.", but I'd rather play it safe here.

I guess one thing I can get out of this experience, besides the obvious (have a good picture!), is that it's more important to have a picture that grabs the attention of the buyer than to show the entire item.

By the way, here's the original picture: 


Please don't tell anyone.  Although I think it's stuck on my Auctiva scroll :)